Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1887-12-22
GOING TO RXTRVNES
lREv. rALMAGEs SUNDAY SERMON
People Who Make a Great Ado About
Small Matters.

TExT; aye blind guides, tOhtch strain az
. 0sdt and siDdHoU cdmeir'-Matt xiii,
A proyerb Is compact wisdom, knowledge
In chunks, library In sentence, the cleo
ticity OF many clouds discharged in one bolt,
q river put through mill race. When Christ
quotes the proverb OF the text BE means TO
Get forth the ludicrous behavior OF those who
make a great buster about small sins and
have no appreciation Of great ones.
In my text a small insect and large quad
ruped are brought into comparisons gnat
and camel. You have in museum or on the
desert seen the latter, a great awkward,
sprawling creature, with back two stories
high, and stomach having a collection Of
reservoirs for desert travel an animal for
bidden to the Jews as food, and in many
hteratures entitled ''the ship of the desert"
The gnat spoken Of in the text is in the grub
form. IL is born in pool or pond, after few
weeks becomes a chrysalis, and then after
few days becomes the gnat as we recognize
II. 1t is in its smallest shape, and yet inhabits
the water-for my text is q misprint, and
ought to read, strain out gnat"
Ny text shows you the Prince OF inconsis-
tencies. A man after long observation has
formed the suspicion that in cup Of water
he Is about to drink there Is a grub or the
grand parent of gnat. He goes and gets
sieve or strainer. He takes the water and
pours it through the sieve in the broad light
He says: II would rather do anything almost
than drink this water until this larva be ex-
tirpated.n This water is brought under in
QUESTION The experiment is successful. The
water rushes through the sieve and leaves
against the side of the sieve the grub or gnat.
Then the man carefully removes the insect
and drinks the water in placidity. But going
out one day, and hungry he devours a ship
of the DESERT the camel, which the Jews
were forbidden to eat. The gastronomer has
no compunctions Of conscience. He suffers
from no indigestion. He puts the lower jaw
under the camel's fore foot, and his upper
jaw over the hump of the camels back, and
gives one swallow and the dromedary disap-
pears forever He strained out gnat; he
swallowed q camel.
While Christ's audience were yet smiling at
the apposteness and wit Of his illustration
for smile they did in church unless they were
too stupid to understand the hyperbole-
Christ practically said to them: THAT is
you" Punctilious about small things; reck-
less about affairs of great magnitude. No
subject ever withered under surgeons knife
more bitterly than did the Pharisees under
Christ's scalpel of truth. As an anatomist
will take a human body to pieces and put
them under microscope for examination, SO
Christ finds His way to the heart Of the dead
Pharisee and cuts it out and puts it under the
glass of inspection for all generations to ex-
anime. Those Pharisees thought that Christ
would fatter them and compliment them,
and how they must have writhed under the
redhot words as he said: Eye fools, ye whited
sepulchres, ye blind guides, which strain out
gnat and swallow camel"
There are in our day great many gnats
strained out and great many canels swal-
lowed, and 1t is the object of this sermon to
sketch few persons who are extensively en-
gagged in that business
First remark that all those ministers of
the Gospel are photographed In the text who
are very scrupulous about the conventional
ties Of religion, but put no particular stress
upon matters OF vast Importance. Church
services ought to be grave andsolemn There
Is no room for friyolity in religious convoca-
tion. But there are illustrations and there
are hyperboles like that of Christ in the text
that will irradiate with smiles any intelli-
gent auditory. There are men like those blind
guides of the text who advocate only those
things in religious service which draw the
corners of the mouth down, and denounce all
those things which have tendency to draw
the corners Of the mouth up, and these men
will 20 to installations and to presbyteries
and to conferences and to associations, their
pockets full of fine sieves to strain out the
gnats, while in their own churches at home
every Sunday there are fifty people sound
asleep. They make their churches a great
dormitory, and their somniferous sermons
are cradle, and the drawled out hymns o
lullaby while some wakeful soul in pew
with her fan keeps the flies off unconscious
persons approximate Now, say it is worse
Ito sleep in church than to smile in church.
for the latter implies at least attention
while the former implies the Indifference of
the hearers and the stupidity of the speaker.
In old age, or from physical infirmity, OF
from long watching with the sick, drow
siness will sometimes overpower one
but when a minister Of the Gospe
Hooks Off upon an audience and find
healthy and intelligent people struggling witt
.drowsiness, it Is time for him to give out th'
.doxology or pronounce the benediction. Th'
,greatsfault Of church services to-day is no
TOO much vivacity, but too much som
molence The one Is an irritating gna
that may be easily strained out; the other i
q great, sprawling and sleepy eyed caIiel o
the dry desert. In all our Sabbath-schools
4 fn all our Bible classes, in all our pulpits w
need to brighten mp our religious messagg
z with such Chrlst-like viyacitv as we find il
the text.
/ take down from my library the biogrt
phies of ministers and writers of past age
q Inspired and uninspired, who have done I'll
most to bring souls to Jesus Christ, and
. find that without single exception, they con
eecrated their wit and their hulnor to Chris
Eliiah used it when he advised the Baalite
Is they could not make their God respon'
telling them to call louder, as their Gc
might be sound asleep or gone ahuntinl
JOB used it when he said to his self-concelte
,comforters: .fWisiom will die with you
Christ not only used it in the text, but wis
He ironically complimented the putredt
M Pharisees, saying: "The whole need not
Dhysician,n and when by one word He d
sscribed the cunning of Herod, saying;
ye and tell that fox Matthew Henry
Commentaries from the first page to u
last coruscated with humor as SUNNI
clouds with heat and lightning. John Bi
yan's writings are as full OF humor as TN
are Of saving truth, and there is not an az
man here who has ever read Pilgrims Pr
VI xzressn who does not remember that VIM
& reading 1t he smiled as often as he wei
Chrysostom, George Herbert, Robert Sout
John Wesley, George Whitefeld, Jeren
Taylor, Rowland Hill, George g. Finpey al
all men Of the past who greatly advanc
the kingdom Of God consecrated their y
and their humor to the cause Of Christ.
it has been in all the ages, and say TO tht
young theological students, who cluster
these services Sabbath by Sabbath, sharp
your wits as keen as cimeters, and then ia
them into this holy war.
It is a very short bridge between SIN
S and a tear suspension bridge from eye
lip. and il Is soon crossed over, and smile
sometimes Just as sacred as q tear: There
as much religion, and think little mo
in spring morning than In starless m
night Religious work without any nun
0r wit In it is banquet with side OF be
and that raw, and no condiments, and
dessert succeeding. People will not sit do
al such a banquet. BY all means remove
frivolity and all bathos and all lightness
ali yulgarity- strain them out through
sieve OF holy discrimination; but, on 4
other hand, beware of that monster WI